Interviews are the heart and soul of many video productions. For a quality video, you need compelling interviews. Beyond securing an interesting person to speak about something worthwhile, great interviews require some behind-the-scenes work beyond just getting the equipment set up right. This post will share ways to get the most out of your interviews.
GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOUR INTERVIEW
Above and beyond anything else, the comfort level of the person being interviewed is the single biggest factor in getting a compelling interview recorded and into your final video.
If the subject of your interview is uptight and nervous, it can make people watching feel uncomfortable too. Stilted, nervous interview subjects also lose credibility because the video seems more fake.
Plus, someone real uptight will not be able to think and respond well to your questions. You’ll get a crummy interview unless you learn to make people relaxed and natural while they’re being interviewed. A lot of that can boil down to using less intrusive video production techniques.
As a video maker, how do you do this?
First, realize that this is actually a major component of your job. The vast majority of people need help ignoring the fact that they have a cold, hard camera lens glaring at them.
Add two-thousand watts of hot light and they really start to sweat!
Which brings me to my first and biggest tip.
Do your best to keep them distracted from the equipment. Give them plenty of opportunity to ignore it all. Have them look at you instead of directly at the camera. Engage them in conversation.
Turn on the lights several minutes before the camera rolls, so they can adapt to the brightness. Make SURE your lights are as non-obnoxious as possible, which means they need to be soft, diffused and not right in their face. Diffuse your lights by aiming them at the wall or the ceiling instead of your subject. Or, use professional tools such as umbrellas, diffusion gels and soft boxes.
If your interview subject is moving around during the taping, it helps a lot to use a wireless microphone. Nothing reminds people they’re being recorded quite like being attached to an audio cable that acts like an unrelenting, always-too-short umbilical cord.
If your subject is sitting or standing still, a lavalier mic clipped onto their collar will be more easily ignored than a handheld microphone shoved into their face.
By its very nature, professional level videotaping is “staging reality.” There are really no two ways about that. Ironic thing is, unless a person has experience being on camera or is a laid back, loosey-goosey personality, the more you as a producer try to control them, stage the event and get it all picture perfect, the more they will tense up. Trust me on this. I’ve seen it a million times.
I have watched shoots drag on unnecessarily because the producer was so involved in creating their visual masterpiece and so dead set to make the on-camera person say it JUST so that it was crazy. Take 9 million and 72 is not productive. These people, who were NOT professional on-camera talent, got so wound up I felt sorry for them. So unless you are working with a pro, don’t expect a person to be perfect on camera. TV loves perfection, but that can be so nerve wracking as to be counterproductive.
Having been involved with literally thousands and thousands of video interviews over the years, I can promise you that if your subject is relaxed and comfortable, you will get a better interview. There were times I had the person so distracted that the interview was over before they even realized it had begun. Then I’d say, “See, that wasn’t hard now, was it?” They’d usually laugh and thank me profusely for making it so easy for them!
- A good videographer is often most effective if they can function as a fly on the wall. Counterintuitive and a bit bruising to the ego, but absolutely true.
If you want more info on the technical aspects of setting up an interview, try this post on talking heads and this post on lighting.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- What is one of the single most important things needed to obtain a good interview, according to this article?
- What can you do with your lighting to help the person being interviewed feel comfortable?
- How might your choice of microphone affect the comfort level of your interview subject?
Thanks for reading VPT
Lorraine Grula
